of wanting to heal him, and emotion made her chest full.
He touched a finger to his mouth. ‘Here …’
Jamilah reached up and pressed her mouth to his, her tongue darting out to lick and taste, teeth nipping gently at his lower lip.
She pulled back and Salman’s eyes glittered. He pointed to his chest, ‘Here, too …’
Jamilah ran her hands down the sides of his powerful torso, feeling a shudder run through him, and pressed her open mouth to his chest, moving down to find a blunt nipple and licking him there before tugging gently on the hard nub.
He shifted back and his erection slid tantalisingly along the moist folds of her sex. Jamilah’s hips lifted towards him instinctively. She ached for him so badly that she moaned in despair when he moved away for a moment to don protection.
But then he was back, pressing down on top of her, kissing her hungrily. With a powerful move he thrust into her, making her gasp at the sensation. It had been so long for her that she was tight, and she shifted to accommodate Salman’s length.
As Salman started to move, though, the tightness eased, and she could feel that delicious tension building and building. A light sweat broke out on her skin. She wrapped her legs around Salman’s back, causing him to slide even deeper, and she felt his chest move against her breasts with his indrawn breath. With ruthless and relentless precision he brought them higher and higher, until there was nowhere else to go. For a second Jamilah felt a moment of fear at the intensity of the climax about to hit, and when it did all she could do was cling on to Salman until she felt him tense, and then the powerful contractions of her orgasm sent him over the edge, too.
For a long moment there was nothing but the sound of their ragged breathing and the pounding of their hearts. Salman eased his weight off her and she felt suddenly bereft, and hated herself for feeling like that. She remembered from before that Salman had never really indulged in post-coital tenderness, so she was shocked when he reached for her and pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her, cradling her bottom with his thighs. She could feel him, still semi-hard, and blushed.
She lay there for a long time, listening to Salman’s breaths deepen and even out. She couldn’t sleep. She was too wound up in the aftermath. She recalled her blatant provocation of Salman and winced. He might have shown her a more vulnerable side of himself than she’d ever seen, and he might have revealed that he hadn’t intended to be so cruel in his rejection of her, but she knew that he would not welcome recognising that. He was too proud, had been invulnerable for too long. And he would lash out.
Wanting to be gone when he woke, dreading seeing his mocking visage at her easy capitulation, she carefully extricated herself from his arms and reached for a robe that was at the end of the bed. She pulled it on and tied it with shaking hands. She looked at Salman, lying sprawled on the bed like a marauding king or a pirate, and before he could wake walked out of the room and straight to her own, where she went into the bathroom, dropped the robe, and stepped into a hot shower.
She willed the tears not to come, hating herself for her weakness. Suddenly all her recent bravado was gone and she was the same soft-hearted naïve Jamilah, who hadn’t learnt a thing about self-protection. Suddenly she heard a sound, and whirled around to see a naked Salman standing at the door of her shower. Ridiculously she covered her breasts and spluttered, ‘What the—?’
He was grim. ‘I’d bet money right now that you haven’t slept with anyone in a long time. You were almost as tight as the first time we slept together.’
Water was getting into Jamilah’s eyes, and humiliation nearly made her feel nauseous. She spluttered again. ‘That is none of your business.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I haven’t been able to sleep with anyone since I kissed you at the Sultan’s party last year.’
Salman stepped into the steam of water and it sluiced down his olive-skinned body. His admission took the sting out of Jamilah’s humiliation. ‘You haven’t?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Not until I saw you again have I wanted to touch anyone.’
‘But … the blonde woman in the castle that morning?’
He grimaced and said curtly, ‘She followed me and wouldn’t get out of my room. I hadn’t slept in nights, and I was too exhausted to carry her out.’
He hadn’t touched her yet, and Jamilah’s hands were still over her breasts. Salman reached out and took them down. His eyes turned sultry and dark, and all Jamilah’s recent feelings of recrimination dissolved like ice on a hot coal. She was mesmerised by his statement and by him.
He took some soap and started to lather it up, and then his hands smoothed over every part of her body, soaping and washing. She leant back against the wall, her eyelids heavy, and could only watch as Salman became more and more visibly aroused. He turned her round and came up behind her, snaking arms around her to cup her soapy breasts in his hands, his fingers trapping her nipples until she squirmed against him, his erection sliding tantalisingly between the globes of her bottom.
She felt him reach down over her belly and lower, between her legs, to where she was hot and slippery with renewed arousal. He muttered roughly, ‘I can’t wait … put your hands on the wall …’
She obeyed him wordlessly, and felt him pull her back more, then spread her legs. With a keening cry of frustration she felt him guide himself between her legs, until he could surge up and into her heat.
One hand touched her, flicking her clitoris, his other hand was on her breast, kneading and moulding the weighty flesh. Jamilah gasped for breath, struggling to retain some sanity as the water sluiced over them, heightening everything.
The climax came swiftly, rolling over them like a huge wave and throwing them high. Jamilah gasped, head flung back, as Salman pounded into her, every powerful thrust of his body sending her hurtling into another climax. With one final thrust he stilled, and she felt his release spill deep inside her. Only the faintest of alarm bells went off. She was too stunned, trembling all over in the aftermath.
Salman gently turned her around and gathered her close, settling his mouth over hers in a brief kiss. ‘Are you okay?’
Jamilah could only nod. She was speechless, and just let Salman lift her out of the shower and wrap her in a huge towel. She’d been wrong. It had never been like this before. It had been amazing, yes. But this … this transcended everything that she had experienced with this man before. It was as if she’d had an extra layer of skin before, but now it was gone. And in a way it was; she was no longer an idealistic virginal innocent …
He dried her, before drying himself, and wrapped her hair in a towel. He hitched another towel around his waist and led her out to the bedroom, to sit beside her on the end of the bed.
Jamilah’s brain was still numb from an excess of sensation and pleasure. Slowly reality trickled back, and Jamilah saw that Salman had his arms resting on his legs, head downbent. As if he could feel the weight of her gaze, he looked up. She saw that there was a grim set to his face.
‘I didn’t use protection.’
An old pain made Jamilah feel weak inside. She hadn’t even noticed that they hadn’t used protection. She forced out through numb lips, ‘It should be fine. I’m at a safe stage of my cycle …’
She looked away, to a spot on the floor, and knew in that moment
